For the last ten years, the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) standard has been used for connecting peripheral devices (e.g., network cards, modems, graphics cards) to microprocessors in computers and other devices. PCI is a bus technology that transfers synchronized data over several (typically 32–64) parallel channels. PCI and PCI-X (Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended) have throughputs ranging from 133 MBps to 1.1 GBps.
It is widely known that microprocessor speeds have dramatically increased over the years. While the PCI and PCI-X standards are currently sufficient to transfer data between processors and input/output (I/O) devices, if processor speeds continue to increase as expected, the PCI standard will soon become obsolete because increasing the speed of the PCI standard beyond its current limits is prohibitively expensive.
With this in mind, a new I/O architecture has recently been developed. That architecture is currently referred to as the Third Generation Input Output (3GIO) interface standard. Unlike PCI, 3GIO (sometimes referred to as Arapahoe) is a point to point serial communication technology. Rather than including a bus of 32 or 64 channels sending synchronized data, 3GIO uses many fewer channels to transfer data which is not synchronized. (The data transferred in the 3GIO standard includes an embedded clock signal which is used to synchronize the transmitter and the receiver.) The 3GIO architecture is much faster than the PCI and PCI-X standards. It currently permits data transfer at 2.5 Gbit/sec, and is expected to scale upward to the theoretical limits of copper (i.e., 10 Gbit/sec).
The basic link of the 3GIO architecture is a low voltage differentially driven connector pair. If communication is desired in both directions, two low voltage differentially driven connector pairs are used, namely, a transmit pair and a receive pair. The bandwidth between devices can be scaled upward by adding connector pairs to form multiple communication channels. However, the differential link remains the basic communication channel between two devices within the 3GIO architecture.
Known differential serial link protocols prior to 3GIO constantly switched data over the differential links. When a transmitter using these earlier protocols has no actual data to transfer, dummy data is transferred over the link. Transferring dummy data in this manner is particularly desirable in the context of AC coupled and/or AC terminated differential links because the voltage on a quieted line (i.e. one without the dummy data) would drift as the AC coupling and/or AC termination capacitor discharged and subsequently recharged. This voltage could possibly take the line out of the range of the receiver.
Such undesirable drift could also occur over time when actual data is being transmitted. To avoid such undesirable drift when actual data is being transmitted, coding schemes such as 8B10B (i.e. 8 bit/10 bit) are used in differential links employing AC coupling. The dummy codes mentioned above and the 8B10B codes are selected to make sure the DC voltage level on both sides of the AC coupling capacitor stay substantially level (i.e., as many “1” bits as “0” bits are transmitted during each predetermined time period to avoid undesirable charging/discharging of the coupling capacitors).
Because of this concern with voltage drifting, power management techniques are not frequently used with differential serial data links. To the extent power management techniques are used, entry to and exit from the power management state is driven by side band signals. However, these side band techniques are disadvantageous in that they require side band communication lines and involve high latency periods.